Wedding buzz shows how we all love a good romance
A week from today, Wills will marry Kate (and I know you don’t need last names) in a hyped-up media event that will be watched by millions. The fascination with these nuptials bothers many, who scorn our obsession with celebrity and worry about our unending fixation on royalty. The cool thing to do, I suppose, would be to share in that disdain. But actually, I find myself kind of happy.
On its face, the whole thing makes no sense. The British government recently announced it might rethink the old-fashioned rules about succession, which now prefer sons over daughters, because they might be discriminatory. Well, good for them, but that’s a bit like worrying about the quality of the food on the Titanic, isn’t it? The bigger issue is the whole idea of a monarchy itself — the concept that the happenstance of one’s parents determines whether you are ruler or subject. Top that off with the fact that British monarchs are mere symbols of the state, political eunuchs with no authority to command anyone to do anything, and the absurdity grows.
But we’ll watch anyway.
Thomas Jefferson once accused John Adams of being a secret monarchist, still in awe of royalty even though he helped lead the break from England. Many thought after the revolution was won that George Washington should be installed as the new nation’s first king. (Washington, himself, put a quick stop to those plans.) We like to think we’re over that now, deep into a culture of meritocracy. Yet little girls across America grow up dreaming of being princesses, and it makes one wonder whether we’ve all got a little bit of the secret monarchist in us — a longing for stability and certainty rather than the turmoil of democracy. These days in particular, as national politics are riven by intense factionalism that seems to be tearing the country apart, the notion of the wise king or queen gently guiding us along a path to unity may not sound all that bad.
But however distasteful we may find today’s politics, that’s not what is driving our focus on April 29. Nor is it some sort of Anglophile wish that we’d never broken from England. “The King’s Speech’’ was only a movie, after all, its many Oscars a tribute to good filmmaking, not a call for reunification.
The real reason for our absorption with William and Kate, I think, is simply that we all love a good romance.
Marriage is an interesting institution. Coupling up would seem to be the most private of acts, of concern only to the two individuals involved. Yet it is also the most public of events: The 2.3 million US weddings each year involve lots of family and friends (169 on average) and enormous expenditures ($71 billion — more than $30,000 each!). Forget Wills and Kate — all weddings are a big deal.
And they should be. Weddings are fundamentally optimistic events, filled with a sense of unlimited possibility. They are markers of one’s transition to adulthood and the beginning of a new family — the building block of society. Sure, we all know the grim realities ahead. Most marriages end in divorce. The carefree joys of the wedding day will soon be challenged by the routine of jobs, kids, fights, and boredom. Worries over money, health, and work will grind away the romance.
But for all of that, we still love weddings. It is no accident that the royal wedding will occur in spring, shortly after Easter and Passover. The season and those religious holidays both speak of renewal. The lifelessness of the winter is over. Christians celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death; Jews celebrate their liberation from slavery. Each wedding — whether broadcast on television or accidentally come upon while passing a local church — gives us hope. Someone else’s joy becomes our joy, perhaps even inspiration to rise above the quotidian.
Some may bemoan news organizations devoting resources and reporters to covering the event — wouldn’t they be better deployed in Libya or Nigeria? — but there’s no deficit of news about death and destruction. For a week or so, we’ll revel in something good.
Originally published in the Boston Globe.